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Pierre, glancing in the glass, saw Captain Halby’s face looking over his shoulder. It startled him, and he turned round. There was the face looking out from a photograph that hung on the wall in the recess where the bed was. He noted now that the likeness hung where the girl could see it the last thing at night and the first thing in the morning.

“So far as that, eh!” he said. “And m’sieu’ is a gentleman, too. We shall see what he will do: he has his chance now, once for all.”

He turned, came to the door, softly opened it, passed out, and shut it, then descended the stairs, and in half an hour was at the door with Captain Halby, ready to start. It was an exquisite winter day, even in its bitter coldness. The sun was shining clear and strong, all the plains glistened and shook like quicksilver, and the vast blue cup of sky seemed deeper than it had ever been. But the frost ate the skin like an acid, and when Throng came to the door Pierre drove him back instantly from the air.

“I only-wanted–to say–to Liddy,” hacked the old man, “that I’m thinkin’–a little m’lasses ‘d kinder help–the boneset an’ camomile. Tell her that the cattle ‘ll all be hers–an’–the house, an’ I ain’t got no one but–“

But Pierre pushed him back and shut the door, saying: “I’ll tell her what a fool you are, Jimmy Throng.” The old man, as he sat down awkwardly in his chair, with Duc stolidly lighting his pipe and watching him, said to himself: “Yes, I be a durn fool; I be, I be!” over and over again. And when the dog got up from near the stove and came near to him, he added: “I be, Touser; I be a durn fool, for I ought to ha’ stole two or three, an’ then I’d not be alone, an’ nothin’ but sour bread an’ pork to eat. I ought to ha’ stole three.”

“Ah, Manette ought to have given you some of your own, it’s true, that!” said Duc stolidly. “You never was a real father, Jim.”

“Liddy got to look like me; she got to look like Manette and me, I tell ye!” said the old man hoarsely. Duc laughed in his stupid way. “Look like you? Look like you, Jim, with a face to turn milk sour? Ho, ho!”

Throng rose, his face purple with anger, and made as if to catch Duc by the throat, but a fit of coughing seized him, and presently blood showed on his lips. Duc, with a rough gentleness, wiped off the blood and put the whisky-and-herbs to the sick man’s lips, saying, in a fatherly way:

“For why you do like that? You’re a fool, Jimmy!”

“I be, I be,” said the old man in a whisper, and let his hand rest on Duc’s shoulder.

“I’ll fix the bread sweet next time, Jimmy.”

“No, no,” said the husky voice peevishly. “She’ll do it–Liddy’ll do it. Liddy’s comin’.”

“All right, Jimmy. All right.”

After a moment Throng shook his head feebly and said, scarcely above a whisper:

“But I be a durn fool–when she’s not here.”

Duc nodded and gave him more whisky and herbs. “My feet’s cold,” said the old man, and Duc wrapped a bearskin round his legs.

II

For miles Pierre and Halby rode without a word. Then they got down and walked for a couple of miles, to bring the blood into their legs again.

“The old man goes to By-by bientot,” said Pierre at last.

“You don’t think he’ll last long?”

“Maybe ten days; maybe one. If we don’t get the girl, out goes his torchlight straight.”

“She’s been very good to him.”

“He’s been on his knees to her all her life.”

“There’ll be trouble out of this, though.”

“Pshaw! The girl is her own master.”

“I mean, someone will probably get hurt over there.” He nodded in the direction of Fort O’Battle.

“That’s in the game. The girl is worth fighting for, hein?”